Ronald Thwaites | Listen first, reform after

Last week, I posited that at least a quarter of the national budget was wasted or spent inefficiently, and gave examples. Well, more proof came from Prime Minister Holness himself this week when he opened an infirmary dormitory which, he said, could have been assembled in a day but had taken five years to construct.

Can you imagine the cost over-runs? Will an example be made of this corruption? I doubt it, because we have normalised poor performance and the financial consequences. No one is ever responsible.

I encountered a ministry some years ago where all but one of several expensive infrastructural projects were running late and seriously over budget. The delays cost hundreds of millions. We could have taken another five schools off shift with the money saved, if only contracts and administration had run as they should. And there was a ‘good’ excuse for every delay and default. The Jamaica Social Investment Fund was the only agency which could be depended on to complete its projects on time and within budget.

PLENTY PUFF, LITTLE POWER

My reflection from such experiences is that the political directorate, despite pretensions of power, has little capacity to propel the huge juggernaut of the State apparatus to perform frugally and productively. There are some worthy exceptions, but just look at the chronic results. What does Mr Holness propose to do about the South Coast Highway or the Cornwall Regional Hospital?

Who else, for example, watched the St Catherine parish councillors on television news fulminate in vain about uncollected garbage, raw sewage and ungoverned urban sprawl in Spanish Town? Several agencies of government pointed fingers at each other. They have no power or plan to change things, but each officer will receive full salary at month-end from you and I - performance or no performance. No wonder everyone wants to be “appointed”; to be made “permanent”. And isn’t that exactly what we have done? Just look at the bloated list of new posts tabled by the Minister of Finance recently.

INEFFICIENCY AND STUPIDITY

We are living as if the only way to get ahead is to take advantage of someone else. Even when you want to pay money to the State, it proves unnecessarily difficult. Ask any lawyer who conveys land or winds up deceased’s estates. And most often State power is used to obstruct rather than facilitate.

Need examples? Recently, a church, using its own building and curtilage to hold a religious service, was deemed by the municipal corporation to be “a place of entertainment” and a licence and a fee extracted. Again, a private minivan carrying boxes of candles for Easter use was fined $50,000 for carriage of “commercial goods”. Then, most pathetic and dangerous of all is the unrefuted report of shameless pressure being exerted so as to install “someone we are comfortable with” as head of the UWI Mona campus. The only thing worse than all these petty tyrannies has been the lack of resistance by those affected.

EXTORTION

Just watch the lonely struggle by Fitz Jackson to put the smallest brake on the scamming of the public by certain financial institutions. This is a David-and-Goliath struggle. And remember that every member of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) parliamentary group voted against Jackson’s efforts to get fairness for the public. Once again, they gave us proof of whose class interests they defend.

NEW CONSCIOUSNESS

The mentality of advantage-taking is manifesting itself in the constitutional reform process. It is emerging quite strongly that the agreement between the political parties to replace the monarchy with a ceremonial president isn’t holding.

More and more people want an executive presidency and consider anything else just a continuing waste of money, despite the limited-but-important functions accorded the governor general and his successor. Younger citizens in particular want to vote for their leader of government and circumscribe his power by strong checks and balances, not in the present indirect way through a political party, but directly. They are unconvinced that we still need to depend on King’s House as well as Jamaica House.

This is part of the decisions which should be put to the citizenry. Who gave the JLP/PNP the authority to determine that? Public sentiment is overtaking what was “decided” earlier. Just saying that you are “building on what was settled previously”is no longer acceptable.

NO MORE ONE-UPMANSHIP

More than this, I get the sense that more people want a change in how a government is chosen; to end the dominance of a political party which can win an election and foist itself on the rest of us, despite being the choice of a fraction of electors, and even a minority of voters..

This is the time to change the terms and conditions of political representation: to elect a president by popular vote and to anchor MPs in their constituencies, beholden to constituents instead of in fealty to a party leader.

Trying to railroad us to limit discourse now to the monarchy issue is a ruse. Everything is everything when you are talking constitutional change. Stop the condescending twaddle complaining about people impatiently wanting to get rid of the king, but also objecting to rushed legislation. Or the fatuous nonsense that private meetings, hidden minutes and staged press conferences are not the same as the secrecy complained of.

NEW MUSCLES

The good sign is the coalescing of several individuals and interest groups to express their priorities for a new constitution and to critique the process which should be applied. Sustaining this verve and morphing it into a strong civic movement will require the suppression of many egos and special interests, all in the cause of getting the essentials right. If achieved, more people will become engaged in political action, the diaspora connection will gain substance, and the texture of Jamaican democracy greatly strengthened.

We only have this one opportunity.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is principal of St Michael’s College at the UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com